Actress Claudia Rodrigues, 52, will have surgery next year to treat multiple sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease she has been living with since 2000. so the partner of the actress, Adriane Bonato. The businesswoman said that Claudia put some properties up for sale to pay for the treatment.
The technique, called BTT Abreu 700, was developed by Brazilian doctor Marc Abreu, who graduated from Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo). According to the inventor, the technology could be used against 16 diseases, including other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
However, specialists joined by VivaBem stated that the procedure still lacks scientific evidence and it is not possible to say that it is able to treat these or other diseases.
BTT Corp, which owns the process, said the price has fluctuated between $36,000 and $50,000 per session (from R$155,000 to R$259,000 in today’s trading). The number of applications depends on the individual assessment of the patient.
i will heal This operation will cure my consequences. It is great. Cláudia Rodrigues to columnist Patrícia Kogut from the newspaper O Globo
What is the procedure?
- MTB is an acronym for Brain Thermal Tunnel.
- The technique is noninvasive, with no incisions, which is why it is not called an operation, but rather an intervention or treatment. It also requires no recovery time.
- Each session lasts five days.
- The procedure involves stimulating an increase in brain temperature in a hospital setting using a device incorporating principles of brain thermodynamics and thermoregulatory frequencies.
- The person wears a helmet in a machine that receives electromagnetic waves and neural stimuli.
- The aim is to restore brain function by producing heat shock proteins called HSPs, substances that can be used as markers and protect the brain in times of stress.
- Production of these proteins could interfere with the faulty mechanisms that cause disease.
- In multiple sclerosis, treatment would help restore the myelin sheaths, layers of fat that cover nerves that the body attacks on its own in patients with the disease.
- The device is approved by the FDA (Food and Medicines Administration), a US agency modeled on Anvisa, for temperature monitoring during surgical procedures, in the recovery room and in the intensive care unit.
Why is it causing controversy?
- According to neurologist Jefferson Becker, president of Brazil’s Committee for the Study and Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, the lack of discussion by researchers about the procedure is a warning.
- The influence of heat shock proteins on the disease is not relevant in the studies carried out so far, he says.
Heat shock protein is not part of the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis. I have never read or seen a round table talking about this as something important in the disease. Jefferson Becker
Without the discussion at conferences and publications on the topic, the treatment would be experimental, says Becker.
Another alarm is the promise of an effect on neurons and the resulting repair of sequelae. Once there is a great loss, it is not possible to regain them, the doctor explains.
This is even the dilemma of neurodegenerative diseases, since most patients discover the disease when the loss of neurons is already great.
“When we get diseases like Alzheimer’s, ALS [Esclerose Lateral Amiotrófica]”In Parkinson’s disease, the symptoms usually only appear when 50 percent of the neurons have been lost and there is no longer any functional reserve,” says the neurologist.
What the health authorities say
Health authorities have already issued advice on treatment with the Abreu 700 BTT. The ABN (Brazilian Academy of Neurology) said in December last year that the technique had “no scientific support”.
Since there is no scientific proof of effectiveness, adoption is foreign to the postulates of medicine. Therefore, it constitutes an ethical violation, including patient harm and/or economic loss, as the case may be. Any promise of improvement or cure in episodes of such serious illness without a solid scientific basis is a ruse in general, and particularly in episodes of such serious health that not infrequently debilitate patients and their families.
Also, the SBN (Brazilian Society of Neurology) issued a notice in December 2021 to remind you that technologies presented as “innovative” cause fear and need evidence.
The SBN is aware that these new treatment options create great expectations and fears among those affected and their families, but stresses that any new possibility of therapeutic intervention must undergo a rigorous phase of clinical testing with multicentre studies so that its effectiveness and safety become effective proven.
What does the company say
BTT Corp being sought has not responded to the positioning request as of the publication of this report. The place remains open.